tickleme: laughter
by lamatikah
Summary: roxas: it was a choice between someone he'd met once and his best friend.


**Sometimes it hurts because I just**  
**know he sat there.**

Roxas

was just a kid, and he was a kid who was normal and disliked school and liked friends and hated his sister. At school he wore a uniform and he undid his top button and he untucked his shirt. He pulled his tie down low and played football with the other boys in his class.

He rode on a bus to school – a single decker with a mardy driver and laughing friends and picky sixth formers.

His friends were Sora, Riku and Kairi but none of them went on his bus. On his bus was Hayner, Olette and Pence. They were all so nice: Hayner was a git but the sort of git people like; Olette was a sweetie and no one could ever even think about hurting her; Pence was so funny and everyone adored him. Sora, Riku and Kairi were best friends forever with him. They were always there.

Especially when he needed them.

XxxoxzXx

One day he was on the bus but Hayner, Olette and Pence weren't because they were at some art convention. Olette was there for her poetry and Pence was there for his photography. Hayner, presumably, was there for morale support – or more likely: to skip school.

Roxas just sat in a seat and stared ahead blankly.

"One of those days, huh?"

He jumped. Someone was sitting next to him, when did this happen?

The boy laughed, "Heh, you're funny, kid." Roxas stared at him, his eyes clouding over again: mornings was when he was looking his least best. The boy clicked his long, spindly fingers in front of his face, "Asleep, hm?" He let out a choked laugh, his features sharpening to a smirk.

Roxas nodded, sleepily, breathing heavily, watching the boy's hair bounce up and down as the bus jerked violently from side to back and back to front and front to side. The smirk was still on his face as he watched Roxas, an emerald eyed gaze fixed so hard to Roxas and fixed so deeply, he just wanted to crawl into a corner.

"Axel, you?" Axel smiled, not smirked, this time.

Roxas blinked, "Roxas."

Axel winked at him and then proceeded to move to the back of the bus, smirking again.

Roxas rubbed the back of his head with his hand.

XxxzxooO

At lunch break, Roxas played football with Sora and Riku and the other boys in his class, like Tidus and Wakka, on the field. Kairi sat with some other girls, like Selphie and Naminé, next to the goal post.

Roxas was happy when he played football, it was a chance to really discard the uniform rule: he could throw off his blazer and unbutton his shirt however low he wanted (though it never exceeded two buttons) and he could take off his shoes (if he really wanted to) and he could get muddy (because we all know that's all boys ever want to do).

Once or twice, he left the game to join Kairi and her lunch. They talked and ate food whilst Sora got tickled by Riku who was laughing and the other giggled. Kairi was cute and petite and it was her fifteenth birthday on Monday. He had a present and a card all ready, laid down on his dining room table, laced with kisses and spilling with love and labelled with Roxas' name.

After he ate, he went back to the game and after he played, he went back to his classroom. And after he went to his classroom, he went to maths.

ZxxXxooO

Halfway through some calculating and scribbling and talking, Roxas heard a helicopter.

And so did everyone else, except for Mrs. Gainsborough.

"Ooh, a plane!" Then she looked out of the window and saw the helicopter, forcing its way through the cloud and air. She laughed, a sweet tinkly giggle which sent infectious vibrations to tickle the children in the class, causing a loud, raucous laugh of all Roxas' classmates and himself. Their teacher smiled. "Close the blinds, please, Rai – it's a bit too bright in here."

Rai closed the blinds.

And Roxas continued to calculate and scribble and talk. Until Miss Lockhart came in with a straight face, a face too straight. It was a sombre face: one you see on the faces of doctors; one you see on the faces of vicars; one you see on the face of _grave_**diggers.**

Not Miss Lockhart.

Mrs. Gainsborough rushed out the room with Miss Lockhart and everyone looked at each other and pulled faces. Shrugging, Roxas calculated another answer, scribbled it down and talked to Seifer.

When Mrs. Gainsborough came back in, she had a sad look on her face, it could be described as a couple of notches lower than the one Miss Lockhart had worn. And then the bell rang and Mrs. Gainsborough said, "No homework."

And they left the room, wondering what the hell was going on.

Roxas met up with Sora, Riku and Kairi as they left their own maths groups because Roxas was dumber than them and was placed in a lower set. When they got outside, they saw a helicopter riding off into the distance and a lot of older students crying and hugging and simply being sad. Roxas looked at the other three who replied with a shrug and a small whimper from Sora.

After languages, the four trooped on towards their next lesson in silence. The older students had gone but the aura lingered like a virus spreading around the kids who filed out quietly with their heads bowed and hands clenched fiercely. No one knew what had happened but people could guess.

After school, Roxas got on his bus alone again.

And wondered where Axel was.

OoxzxXo

The weekend came and went in a mess of colours and cooking and clubs.

And then it was Monday.

On Monday, Roxas missed the bus. And when he eventually got to school by car, he saw tears in the teachers eyes and depressed looking students all piling into the hall. Roxas followed the crowds.

Inside, the head was all clad in his black suit as he paced the stage, unconsciously biting his nails and running a shaking hand through his thinning hair. Roxas sat down at a seat and looked around him. Everyone – not just teachers and older students – were huddled together, sobbing and grieving and looking ever so ever so sad.

Roxas had obviously missed some important message.

As the last few dregs of kids scattered into the hall, the head began to talk. But a choked whisper came out instead.

He cleared his throat and started again.

"As you all probably know, a... a death occurred last Friday." Roxas' breath hitched in his throat. "An untimely and, uh, and, well. We would like you all to receive the same message about it. Axel-" Roxas stopped breathing altogether. Axel? "-Quinn died from heart failure on Friday."

And then the head walked off.

Roxas sat in numb shock. Axel Quinn, whom he had met the very same day, was dead. The teachers were getting his fellow pupils out in rows but Roxas stayed were he was: surely he wasn't dead. Right? That sort of thing doesn't happen but in soap operas.

And yet, it just had happened.

OoXOzXxx

They found Kairi sobbing in the locker room. Her head was pressed up against the side of the metal box, tears pouring out her eyes in silent trickles.

Roxas bent over, a stern look on his face.

He sat down next to her and sighed, a desperate sort of sigh. Axel was dead. He hardly knew the boy, but he was dead. Axel had gone on his bus and Roxas had, of course, seen him there before. He may have even said hi once or twice but they weren't close or knowledgeable of one another. They were merely acquaintances – and even that would be stretching it.

When Axel had talked to him that morning, Roxas thought afterwards that maybe they could be friends – he could see a whole new relationship blooming with the creation and failure of a band; with, when he was old enough, the clubbing late at night and returning in the early hours with no one but themselves; with the truth or dare sleepovers which always ended up with them laughing at each other.

Roxas could see it all. They'd be **friends**. But now they wouldn't and never could be because life was a bitch and fate was its pimp.

He could feel a lump in his pocket and he carefully pulled it out.

It was Kairi's birthday present. He turned towards the girl who was still huddled up into a ball next to him, tears filling up her eyes until she had to wipe them away with her hand. He handed her the little box, his eyes full of pleading. She tentatively took it from his shaking hands and gently prised open the lid – a soft smile played on her lips. It was a small plushie. Her favourite thing _ever_.

She took it out and arranged it neatly on her blazer.

"Suits me, right?" she let out a shaky giggle and Roxas did the same. "Did you know him, Roxas?"

Roxas stopped. Did he know him? He could've known him. "Um," he replied, "yeah. I-I guess I knew him."

Kairi nodded and placed a hand on his.

XxZooOxx

Rain spattered down, great drops of water smacking him in the back and slipping down his coat, dripping off his nose and eyelashes, his mac sleeves and into his trousers. It was uncomfortable and awkward, but he managed to get there.

The goal post looked deserted and dead. The flowers seemed to stretch out before him, vast quantities of lilacs and reds and blues and even blacks spread onwards, mixed together with cards and laminated sheets of farewells. Roxas wasn't even sure what to do.

To just think that in that same place, on that same day, in that same hour perhaps, Roxas had been playing there and sitting there and eating there. And in that same place, on that same day, in that same hour, Axel had collapsed and... _died_.

It made Roxas feel sick.

He didn't want to be there any longer so he threw his flower in any old place and ran.

Ran away from the morbid looking goal post, away from the dejected looking flowers, away from the nearly dissolved cards.

They scared him, like a reminder that it **did **happen and he'd never ever never be able to make friends with Axel.

He wondered if maybe, he had been friends with Axel earlier, would this have ever happened? Would it have happened to someone else? What if Axel had talked to him longer on the bus? What if he had talked to Axel at lunch break? What if he hadn't been playing football? What if Rai hadn't closed the blinds?

And Roxas played the What If Game until he couldn't think of anything to ask anymore.

XxzoOxO

Kairi's birthday lay in pieces on the floor, discarded and broken, no one even bothering to sweep it up. Roxas felt that he should do something, but he couldn't think of anything through his grief of the loss of a possible friendship. He had no idea what to do: be happy for Kairi or be sad for Axel. Oh yeah, they say that your happiness is what the dead person wanted for you.

But what did they know?

When Roxas thought about it, the longer Axel was mourned over, the more sense it made. The longer people thought about him, the longer his spirit lived on. Axel was quickly becoming his obsession.

But Kairi was becoming less and less talkative throughout the week, snapping in and out of conversation, often brooding in her own thoughts. And Roxas was getting worried because who wanted a friend who didn't act like themself?

And suddenly there was a letter out about Axel's funeral. '_A celebration of his life_' the letter said. Roxas mused over this. A celebration of a life he had not known – a celebration of a life that was fast being dug underground by people because it was old news. A celebration of a life that was not even a life for Roxas until he had started talking to him. On the same day that the life had left.

Roxas didn't know if he could take it anymore.

The bus had become unusually quiet, not even Hayner chatted or talked. Other buses drove past with screaming kids, laughing and shouting. But Roxas' bus stayed silent and lonely. The bus driver didn't even ask to see their bus passes, just let them on.

Roxas decided against going to his funeral.

The letter said that it was preferably for those who knew him. Roxas didn't know him. He was being foolish – he was just being dumb.

Thinking that he could have been friends with Axel, thinking he could have saved Axel if he did this and this differently. Thinking he **knew** Axel. Roxas was a stupid boy.

And Kairi was a friend in need.

xxXoZooO

**But sometimes I smile because I just**  
**know he sat there.**

**- **

Ahem, pour Nirii darling because I love her. I'm hoping you find this good, though the ending is major **SUCKY**. It doesn't really end does it? It just sorta... happens. Oh well, we cannot brood on these things for too long. We must move ON. And maybe redo them later. Read and review please!


End file.
